In case you missed this, it's an amazing admission, and should be a part of every debate about government-run healthcare --- tossed in the face of every wingnut who says government can't run anything, much less healthcare. And yet, we allow the government to run the healthcare system for our troops, who, Bill Kristol admits in this interview, deserve "first class health care," while "the rest of us can go out and buy insurance."

The uncomfortable inference, for Kristol, is that government-run healthcare is as good, if not better than, that available to private citizens. To make it worse, Kristol is booed when he argues that's the way it should be. Whoops...

The video above, featuring just a part of their healthcare discussion, is courtesy of RAW STORY. Stewart's complete interview with Kristol, which was trimmed down for length before airing last night, follows in full below...

Interesting, if you look at that TIME online poll...Stewart comes in first place in most states (Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, que?), is tied for first in a couple, is in second place for all of the rest, except...

Okay, so...
They're against government-run health care (because it's so bad), but it's what the troops have (because they deserve the best).

But that Walter Reed story didn't sound like they're getting the best. So maybe government-run care IS pretty bad.
But wait, isn't Congress's health care government-run, too? And I get the impression IT'S pretty goddamn awesome.

My bullshit-meter went boing a long time ago or I'd consult it. But I guess all you really need is a sense of smell.

For that time poll, its funny that Brian Williams and Jon Stewart comprise 73% of the results, and Brian Williams is a frequent guest on the Daily show, and I find him to be VERY funny, with a very quick wit.

Of course it IS an on-line poll which probably skews things in the favor of Stewart, since most rural people aren't going to watch the daily show and probably dont spend a large amount of time on-line either.

It is a sad statement about the media that a freaking comedian is our most trusted news source....

So the USA will provide healthcare for the very poor, sell healthcare to fortunate upper classes, but force 50 million middle, working class members to choose which sacrifice to make - (?)

A family's choice to pay monthly healthcare premiums giving wealthy insurance companies and multimillion dollar CEO's a guaranteed yearly revenue as opposed to saving for their children's college educations is a pretty tough choice.

(In the USA life is Russian Roulette - and the American Dream is dead, if you want to afford for good health? Or is it where the healthcare and tax "systems" are designed to eventually completely drain family assets and inheritances?)

If that same child has terminal cancer will the government then come in and force chemo treatments and then take the family's home and assets away to pay for it? Straddle the family with payment slavery and collections abuse, credit trashing for the next fifty years? Will seized family assets then go to the millionaires who run the medical businesses?

Will the government force psychiatric institutionalization for a terminal patient who chooses suicide instead of financial devastation and sacrifice of his children's inheritance to medical "businesses?" And then seize his assets for business profit, to cover costs after the forced "treatment?"

When the working classes are sick, stressed, and eventually eliminated, who will save up the money to attend an occasional concert or movie? Who will shop? Who will take a week's vacation every year? Who will watch the TV every night, and listen to the advertisers?

It's a travesty the people arguing healthcare, lobbying Congress, and working the industry have no idea the plight and stresses of working class people. These are the ones who work, struggle to live honest lives and whose children are sent to war.

You folks back home had better watch out, lest you become like those European "commies." Here in the Czech Republic I pay about 70 bucks a month for full medical, dental, and ophthalmological care. True, I have to pay a buck-fifty surcharge for each doctor's appointment and trip to the pharmacy for prescriptions, and hospitalization costs 3.50 a day, but the medical staff are all extremely well educated and competent, and the hospital where my physicians work is first-rate. Some years ago my wife was diagnosed with a particularly nasty cancer, and for three years all the many surgical procedures, chemotherapy sessions, and medications were covered, so at least I wasn't bankrupted by those costs (there were other factors, of course, that bankrupted me). I am disgusted and appalled by the tone of the debate over health care reform back in what was once my home country. Moral bankruptcy is the only way I can describe the dollar worship I see there...

Thank you Floridiot, and Czaragorn. Just one medical test taking less an hour here can cost upward of $6,000.00. Some struggling, working poor mothers with children don't earn that much money in six months.

There is a social spot where pride prevents people from accepting welfare and medicaid. That's the spot which is being erased.

Who wouldn't love to recover hours spent waiting in an American doctor's waiting room, or emergency room? Or hours spent on the phone, on hold or listening to a telephone tree?

We need to hear more from people like you Czaragorn. It's apparently the only way Americans will get the truth about "inferior healthcare" in "less successful" countries.

And Floridiot, you're exactly right. Corporations and businesses get their tentacles into a person's soul, slave them with a salary and dangle medical benefits and savings plans over their heads to where they've snared slaves for the next 20-30 years. And they're actually making money from it, to boot.

Take the salary and divide it by hours served, and hours spent at home worrying about losing the job. The only humane thing a corporation can do is provide healthcare, (hopefully with a good psychiatric plan.)

Our responsible government, with good conscience and having an established purpose of serving its people, must find ways to lower the costs of healthcare, and make it available to all Americans.

To further add to the craziness, the political side of this is that local Democratic groups do not stand up to their elected officials who are in the pocket of the insurance and other industries. People like me are castigated and called "lunatic fringe" "you don't understand politics" "Kucinich never passed any worthwhile legislation because he is a purist" etc etc. They call me defeatist because I rant about the importance of getting the right people in office...being a D doesn't mean shit if the D in question (Baucus, et al) don't support progressive ideals (which are contained within many local and state Democratic platforms, btw!)

If it weren't for activists like myself (and many of you) and elected people like Kucinich, single-payer and a whole horde of other things wouldn't even be on the table.

Fuck compromise. Why would we want to compromise with the same people (republithugs/corporatists) who want to destroy this country? Let's draw the battle lines and fight this thing out. If Baucus, Cantwell, Wyden, etc want to be on the other side of the battle line, we take them out by putting our energies behind real progressives, EVEN IF IT MEANS LOSING ELECTIONS TO REPUBLICANS. We are where we are because we have played "lesser of two evils" for too long.